'Long threads of history and culture'

 

“Whenever you're writing a book or creating a movie or a game, your first task is to get the reader/audience/player to suspend disbelief, to buy into the logic and boundaries of your world, even though those boundaries might include things like dragons and magic. To do that, you need long threads - of history and culture.” – R.A. Salvatore

 

Born in Massachusetts on this date in 1959, Salvatore has authored 22 New York Times bestselling books, led by The DemonWars Saga and Forgotten Realms novels.  He also has been highly successful writing the backstories and text for a number of popular science fiction-type video games.

 

The youngest of a family of seven, he credited his high school English teacher with his initial development as a writer. Then as a student at Fitchburg State College in Virginia, he became interested in fantasy after reading J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, given to him as a Christmas gift.  He quickly changed his major from Computer Science to Journalism/Media and took up writing fantasy.  

 

Just before becoming a full-time writer in the early 1980s, he worked as a nightclub bouncer and attributes his fierce, vividly described battle scenes to that experience – a tribute to the "Always write what you know" mantra.

 

“I never intended to be a professional writer,” he said.  “As the story (for my first novel Echoes of the Fourth Magic) developed, the one thing I had in my hopes was that this would be something tangible to separate me from the nameless, numbered masses.  I loved the world of imagination.”